Blue Labyrinth

Most people are about as aware of their surroundings as a sea cucumber.

How awful a knowledge of the truth can be.

There was a pause while Pendergast considered this. “I prefer hypocrisy to poverty.

My idle curiosity might lead to something more official, if the lieutenant feels his work is being hindered by an officious, small-minded, self-important bureaucrat. Not you, of course. I speak in general terms only.

What was that line of Sophocles from Oedipus Rex? “How awful a knowledge of the truth can be.

sometimes not knowing can be a lot worse than knowing—even if knowing proves to be very painful.

specimens, wait until they’ve been examined, then put them back.” “Bone librarian—a most apt description. How many visiting scientists

You just put your boot so far up his ass, he’ll have to eat his dinner with a shoehorn.” “I can always count on you for a suitable bon mot.

There was a pause while Pendergast considered this. “I prefer hypocrisy to poverty.” “Come to think of it, there is a rationale. Leng didn’t make his money from killing. He made it from speculating in railroads, oil, and precious metals.” Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “I did not know that.” “There is much you still don’t know about him.

To one side, a vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, polished to a gem-like brilliance, sat on a flatbed trailer, ready to be taken to its new owner. Constance looked from Pendergast to the Rolls and back again. “I really don’t need two, you know,” he said.

Mrs. Trask turned to him. “When Mr. Pendergast asks for something, we do not say no.

I like your custom 1911,” the man said, glancing at Pendergast’s weapon. “Les Baer Thunder Ranch Special? Nice-looking piece.

Hezekiah Pendergast,” Constance continued, “was the great-great-grandfather of Aloysius—and a first-rate mountebank. He began his career as a snake-oil salesman for traveling medicine shows and, over time, devised his own ‘medicine’: Hezekiah’s Compound Elixir and Glandular Restorative.

What you’re suggesting is that Hezekiah’s elixir caused epigenetic changes. Such changes can and do get passed down the generations. Environmental poisons are the leading cause of epigenetic changes.

words, it gave a rather convincing impression of trying to elude pursuit.” The dry, faintly ironic delivery